Search

As a rapidly developing country, Indonesia faces a challenge in improving air quality that is made more difficult by frequent forest fires linked to deforestation and volcanic eruptions. This paper analyses the link between development and air pollution in 30 Indonesian cities from 2002 to 2019. Air quality is measured using two novel regional air quality indicators (AQIs) for PM 2.5 and PM 10 estimated from weather observations and NASA satellite data on Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). Results from an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) analysis, based on a dynamic panel data model, show that forest fires and volcanic activity have significantly worsened regional air quality in Indonesia. The model also shows that the EKC hypothesis is rejected for Indonesia as cities have followed a monotonically increasing trend in air pollution with respect to economic growth. An additional 1% of economic growth increased long run pollution as measured by AQI PM 2.5 and PM 10 by 0.35% and 0.46%, and forest fire events by 0.11% and 0.06%. A partial Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) of forest fires shows that particulate matter pollution is excessive. Decreasing the frequency of forest fires by 1% would generate a net benefit of between US$17 million to 145 million. The lower estimate of the health benefits exceeds the agricultural benefits of forest fire without accounting for other non-market costs due to forest fires. Our results imply that, as Indonesia grows economically, air quality is likely to continue deteriorating. Further, regions affected by regular volcanic activity and wildfires should apply tighter emission standards to controllable point source emissions from industry and non-point source emissions such as agricultural forest fires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is a scarce resource affecting the implementation of many sectoral policies. In Indonesia, the expansion of palm oil plantations has led to non-sustainable land use practices in past years, particularly deforestation. More recently, the government has set ambitious targets for the adoption of biodiesel which will require expansion of oil palm plantations, thus putting further pressure on land. Meanwhile, the need to guarantee food supply, forest conservation and climate change mitigation also imply challenges when it comes to land allocation and use. This paper examines the role that land plays in the implementation of sectoral policies in Indonesia, exploring the availability of land to satisfy the multiple goals defined in national policies. We explore land competition resulting from allocations made in official policy documents starting with biofuel policy. The analysis of policy goals and coherence when it comes to land allocation is made in relation to agriculture, climate and forestry policies. We conclude that adjustments need to be made in the policies to avoid overlappings and misinterpretations when it comes to land allocation. The area made available for meeting each sectoral policy goal when taking into account cross sectoral interactions is: 14.2 Mha for agriculture, 43 Mha for climate mitigation measures, 9.2 Mha for forestry, and 20.9 Mha for biofuels. A more uniform land classification and development of a common reference database will increase transparency on land allocation and use, and help to monitor land use change, ultimately supporting the achievement of multiple national goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption has often been blamed for causing deforestation, however, the evidence is mixed. The paper develops a framework to assess the impacts of corruption on forests and prioritize policy responses. Rather than relying just on a theoretical description of corruption, the framework is developed by analyzing how corruption manifests itself on the ground in the forest sector in Indonesia. The framework considers the potential impacts of corruption at different stages of forest management. We argue that to identify the specific impacts of corruption, it is necessary to understand intervening factors. It is shown that the impacts of different types of corruption on forests may be direct, indirect, ambiguous, or even negligible. Therefore, anti-corruption efforts should be more targeted to the specific types of corruption that are most likely to contribute to deforestation and forest degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand for forestland for non-forest uses, mostly oil palm, has increased dramatically in the past few years and has become a chief driver of deforestation in Central Kalimantan. In this paper, we aim to shed light on how multiple levels of government create a facilitating environment for oil palm expansion. In our research, we employed three different methods: content analysis of key policy documents, participant observations, and expert interviews. We found that the technical complexities of formal procedures for the conversion of forest to oil palm are relatively easy to bypass. Contradicting laws and regulations have created a situation where the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) and local governments have relatively equal legal mandates and authority over land-use and allocation. This is further complicated by the ambiguity of the decentralization policy. Enabled by the spatial planning law and the decentralization laws, local governments have aggressively issued plantation licenses for forest areas without the formal release of the forest from the Ministry of Forestry. The issuance of plantation permits has also been legitimized by other policies within central government, which have made oil palm a national priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, international agreements, treaties, and conventions address tropical deforestation and specific causes of rainforest transformation. Such international regimes may aim to conserve natural forests or to support the exploitation of lands for a particular purpose, e.g. agricultural commodities. This paper’s goal is to map the international regime complex for rainforest transformation by identifying those global and regional regimes that are relevant for tropical rainforest transformation systems in Indonesia. The relevance of international regimes for rainforest transformation is assessed based on a novel methodology using two criteria: First, international regimes may be relevant in Indonesia because the core problem they address exists in Indonesia (problem dimension). Second, specific international regimes may be made relevant by the actions of specific actors and their coalitions in pursuit of their interests (actor dimension). To achieve the study’s goals we used (1) content analysis of international policy documents and treaty texts, (2) expert interviews with key informants in Indonesia, and (3) own field observations in current Indonesian land use politics. The results indicate that regimes dealing with biological diversity, climate change, trade in endangered species, wetland management, international tropical trade, illegal logging, Southeast Asian (ASEAN) forest and environment, the Asia Pacific free trade, and the southeast Asian rubber trade regime are relevant in both the problem and actor dimensions. The regimes concerned with desertification and international forestry research are relevant only in the actor dimension. In contrast, the following regimes are relevant only in the problem dimension: indigenous rights, forest certification, palm oil certification, agroforestry certification, and international rubber trade. We discuss our results considering global and regional regimes relevant to Indonesian rainforest transformation systems. We conclude that regimes relevant solely due to the engagement of domestic actors and not in respect of the problem dimension are unlikely to maintain their relevance in the long term. In the short term, however, they have the potential for creating substantial political benefits for the actors using them. In contrast, regimes with high problem relevance but low actor backing are unlikely to even enter the political agenda, and therefore will have only limited impact. This suggests that future research should consider that, whilst relevance in the problem dimension is necessary to establish regime influence, it alone does not suffice. We can expect global and regional regimes to have an influence only when powerful actors back them in their agenda setting, domestic policy formulation and actual implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Applied models of policy interventions are increasingly expected to consider households’ responses to these interventions, which makes agent-based modelling popular in applied policy situations. Implementing an adequate level of agent heterogeneity and mapping it into a spatial environment are critical factors of such applied modelling. However, policy applications demand the characterisation and parameterisation of behavioural response functions of heterogeneous agents and the spatial distribution of heterogeneous agents, which are neither highly transparent nor greatly tested steps in implementing agent-based models. This paper describes an agent-based model of fuel price changes for a case study in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, and specifically: (a) the characterisation and parameterisation approach, (b) resulting agent types for approximating behavioural heterogeneity, and (c) emerging spatial poverty and deforestation patterns. The model highlights the spatial dynamics of poverty dynamics, indicating that the direct impact of deforestation on poverty among forest-dwelling communities is to trigger their migration into peri-urban areas. Overall, the model suggests that poverty increases in response to fuel price reductions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper uses a large panel database to investigate the determinants of forest clearing in Indonesian kabupatens since 2005. Our study incorporates short-run changes in prices and demands for palm oil and wood products, as well as the exchange rate, the real interest rate, land-use zoning, forest protection, the estimated opportunity cost of forested land, the quality of local governance, the poverty rate, population density, the availability of communications infrastructure, transport cost, local rainfall and terrain slope. The econometric results highlight the role of dynamic economic factors in forest clearing: significant roles for lagged changes in all the short-run economic variables—product prices, demands, the exchange rate and the real interest rate—as well as communications infrastructure, some types of commercial zoning, rainfall and terrain slope. We find no significance for the other variables, although our measure of protected-area status is too general for strong conclusions to be drawn about the empirical relationship between forest clearing and protection. It is also possible that the insignificance of transport cost in our results is due to collinearity with our proxy for communications cost, and/or the offsetting effects of transport cost on the direct profitability of forest clearing (negative) and the effectiveness of local forest regulation (positive). Our results strongly support a model of forest clearing as an investment that is highly sensitive to expectations about future forest product prices and demands, as well as changes in the cost of capital (indexed by the real interest rate), the relative cost of local inputs (indexed by the exchange rate), and the cost of land clearing (indexed by local precipitation). By implication, the opportunity cost of forested land fluctuates widely with changes in international markets and decisions by Indonesia''s financial authorities about the exchange and interest rates. Our results suggest that forest conservation programs are unlikely to succeed if they ignore such powerful forces. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Indonesia has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, with a significant impact on the planetary carbon balance and loss of biodiversity. It also covers a vast and often inaccessible area frequently obscured by clouds, making accurate, timely monitoring of its forests difficult. Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are unhindered by clouds and can provide clear images whenever there is a satellite pass, hence provide a potentially important tool for monitoring forest changes. Over Sumatra, the JAXA Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) PALSAR L-band radar provided both ScanSAR HH polarisation with repeat images every 46days, thus providing much more frequent clear imagery than other available rapid deforestation monitoring tools, and approximately annual Fine-Beam Dual (FBD) image pairs with HH and HV polarisations. Temporal analysis of ScanSAR images shows that deforestation in the Sumatran province of Riau can be identified by large values of the temporal standard deviation, but high detection rates are associated with high false alarm rates, particularly in swamp forest. There does not appear to be a reliable signature of the onset of forest disturbance in the ScanSAR time-series. Deforestation can also be detected in annual FBD data by combining increases and decreases in both the HH and HV channels, since the four types of change are complementary; these different polarisation responses indicate a variety of physical processes that may be involved in the radar signature of deforestation. Significant improvements in performance are possible by combining FBD and ScanSAR data, giving 72% detection of deforestation for a false alarm rate (detection of deforestation in undisturbed forest) of 20%. Error analysis based on (a) likely errors in the Landsat data used to provide a reference for deforestation and (b) differences between the times of acquisition of the Landsat data and the FBD data suggest that the true detection rate for the FBD data is underestimated. All the analysis in the paper uses fully automatic methods, but it is likely that false alarms in the ScanSAR data due to periodic flooding could be reduced by human inspection. The performance figures reported here could also be improved if knowledge about the locations of dry and swamp forest was included in the methodology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Forest management poses particular challenges as the pressure on forests is huge due to deforestation. In this context, the establishment of protected areas is a common conservation measure where institutions are put in place and sanctions regarding forest use are enforced. This paper focuses on the practice of sustainable forest management and the associated perspectives of local institutions at the rainforest margins of Lore Lindu National Park (LLNP) in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Our case study applies a qualitative social science research approach. Interviews and group discussions with relevant actors such as farmers, village authorities, the National Park authority, and non-governmental organization members were conducted. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework served to structure the study and to provide a set of questions to be considered concerning rules, participants, and conservation outcomes. State-induced formal rules are compared with traditional informal rules regarding natural resource use. Our results suggest that the current state-imposed formal rules have not been successfully implemented in the past. Insufficient boundary demarcation, and a lack of congruence between rules and local conditions have been identified as main reasons. Traditional informal rules are rather more respected by local people since they are adapted to traditional use rights and sanctions at the village level. Community conservation agreements (CCAs) are considered a promising tool to mediate between National Park conservation interests and local people''s needs integrating traditional informal rules. However, the CCAs implemented in the LLNP area do not address existing differences in perception and behavior of indigenous people and migrants in the area. We argue that this is a central aspect in terms of successful CCA implementation and forest management. Thus, we recommend that the National Park authority should take the cultural diversity of the area seriously into consideration and integrate flexible and distinct socio-cultural strategies into its management processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We explore stakeholders perceptions on REDD+ finance in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam. • Actors agree that the lack of finance is not the most significant challenge. • Addressing funding gaps alone will not help to advance REDD+ policies. • Effective REDD+ implementation requires improved forest governance. • Recognizing and addressing drivers of deforestation are essential for REDD+ success. Financing REDD+ is complex, due to the need to seek answers not only to the question of who should finance REDD+, but also who should benefit from it. This paper examines the perceptions of REDD+ stakeholders in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam on different aspects of financing: who should finance REDD+ and who should receive REDD+ benefits for what. Our findings show these issues are political, driven by economic considerations at national level and – despite the narrative of inclusive, participatory decision making – are largely determined by governments. Lack of finance was thereby not always considered by national policy actors to be the most significant challenge during 2010–2019; rather other issues – like lack of knowledge on REDD+ by relevant actors; ineffective coordination between state agencies, the private sector and civil society; unclear tenure rights; ineffectively addressing the main deforestation drivers; low law enforcement capacity; and unclear benefit-sharing mechanisms – have also been perceived to impede REDD+ implementation and payment distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]